Patricia M. Clancy

Japanese/Korean Linguistics

Japanese and Korean are typologically quite similar, so a linguistic phenomenon in one language often has a counterpart in the other. The papers in this volume are intended to further collective and collaborative research in both languages. The contributors discuss aspects of language acquisition, discourse, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonology, morphology, typology, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics. The papers were presented at the Southern California Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference in September 1991. Contributors to this volume are Patricia M. Clancy, Seiko Yamaguchi Fujii, Shoichi Iwasaki, Kyu-hyun Kim, Yoshiko Matsumoto, Shigeko Okamoto, Sung-Ock S. Sohn, Kyung-Hee Suh, Eunjoo Han, Jongho Jun, Ongmi Kang, David James Silva, Noriko Akatsuka, Shoji Azuma, Soonja Choi, Bruce L. Derwing, Yeo Bom Yoon, Sook Whan Cho, Tsuyoshi Ono, Hiroko Yamashita, Laurie Stowe, Mineharu Nakayama, Ruriko Kawashima, Masanori Nakamaura, Shin Watanabe, Dong-In Cho, Stanley Dubinsky, Hiroto Hoshi, Yasua Ishii, Hisatsugu Kitahara, Masatoshi Koizumi, Jae Hong Lee, Sookhee Lee, Young-Suk Lee, and Shigeo Tonoike.

The conversational use of reactive tokens in English, Japanese, and Mandarin

Abstract This paper investigates ‘Reactive Tokens’ in Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and English. Our definition of ‘Reactive Token’ ( = ‘RT’ ) is ‘a short utterance produced by an interlocutor who is playing a listeners role during the other interlocutors speakership’. That is, Reactive Tokens will normally not disrupt the primary speakers speakership, and do not in themselves claim the floor. Using corpora of conversational interactions from each of the three languages of our study, we distinguish among several types of RTs, and show that the three languages differ in terms of the types of RTs favored, the frequency with which RTs are used in conversation, and the way in which speakers distribute their RTs across conversational units.

The socialization of affect in Japanese mother-child conversation☆

Abstract In this study the socialization of affect through language (cf. Ochs and Schieffelin, 1989) is analyzed in three Japanese mother-child pairs, with special emphasis on kowai, ‘be scary/be afraid (of)’. Results indicate that the mothers and their two-year-olds already share an extensive affect lexicon, consisting primarily of adjectives and verbs that encode specific emotional states or more general evaluations with affective connotations. A model of the socialization of affect through language is proposed, in which children experience the socializing potential of language in three ways: modeling of the affect lexicon by caregivers, direct instruction in the use of certain words, and participation in negotiations in which caregivers question, accept, reject, and substitute alternatives for childrens use of affect words. The linguistic and cultural resources proposed as mediators of the socialization process include the content and grammar of the affect lexicon, the frequency with which an affect word is associated with particular stimuli and/or experiencers, and the conversational sequences that serve as a site for the negotiation of affect.

Referential Strategies in the Narratives of Japanese Children.

The referential strategies used in narrative discourse by 60 Japanese children (aged 3 years; 8 months to 7 years; 4 months) and 10 adults were analyzed to determine the factors underlying choice of nominal versus elliptical forms. Four predictor variables were examined: age, discourse context (Introductions, Same Subjects, and Switch Subjects), plot centrality (hero vs. subordinate characters), and type of narrative (picture‐based vs. video‐based). The main effects of age, discourse context, and plot centrality were significant, and there were significant interactions between all pairs of the four predictor variables. Results are discussed in terms of the cognitive, social, and linguistic factors underlying referential choice in development.